Native Landpod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. She is in fact a lawyer, and she's also a member of the Texas State House representing Districts one hundred and
forty seven. We are joined today by State Representative Jalanda Joe Jones, and you just heard a clip of her talking about the governor talking about subpoena and issuing warrants for the arrest of the legislators who left Texas to avoid a vote on a very unconstitutional, racial, racist, frankly Jerry Mandarin process that the Texas government is currently going through.
And they're not the only ones. This is happening, y'all in Missouri, it has happened in Louisiana, and there is a case before the Supreme Court right now about this very issue. So I'm three Native lampod fam I normally say, well a mom, but we jumped right into it. To be joined today by State Rep. Jones. How are you doing today?
I'm well, I'm well very good.
Where are you because you're on the run and this is not good for them because you're a former track and field athlete.
So are you sure right, I'm a four time United States champion.
Don't play. Yes, I can't tell you where I'm at.
Okay, all right, Well we're on the run and it's a secret. So can you talk to us about what you all are doing While you all are ensuring that the Texas State House cannot have a quorum on this very, very important issue. You are on the front lines of the fight that so many people in this country have been pleading for since January. Talk about how you all arrived at this destination, the importance of you all standing this ground right now.
Well, we arrived at this destination because we saw that the fix was in for a variety of reasons, Like one reason was so we got our committee assignments in January.
I was on the redistricting committee. I was like, why I'm on a redistricting committee.
This ain't no, this ain't this has ain't just happened, So what's that about? So that sort of cued me. But then we had no meetings during the regular session, so I was like, Okay, maybe it's just a standing committee. And then all of a sudden in the spring, we start hearing talk about redistricting because Trump's numbers started coming in and everything he's doing is terrible.
You know, He's got that.
Big, horrible, tragic bill that he forced down our throats by one vote. And interestingly, Congressional District eighteen didn't have representative. The governor didn't set the special election until really far away, so things just started making sense. And even when he first called the special session, he didn't put redistricting on there because he didn't want no heat. And then he put it on right before it started, and then they
had three sham hearings. Again, I was on the committee until I stepped down, but he had won in Austin, won in Houston, won in Arlington, and they literally had no maps. So how can people testify on redistricting and how it's going to negatively affect them if there are no maps? So we were like, and then because there were no maps, they were forcing people came to testify, to testify as neutral when legally you have to be
four or against. And they kept saying, when you have to do that, and I'm saying, ah, they're trying to lay this legal framework for this so that when it goes to court, and it is going to court that the course would be will no one was against it, and then they ended up and then again it was a worst kept secret in Austin. I'd heard that the map was gonna drop on Wednesday. It ended up dropping
on Wednesday. I'd heard that we were going to have a marathon hearing on Friday, and it happened on Friday, and then people were only given two minutes to speak. The chair of the committee kept saying, the chair is not advised. The chair is not advised. That means I don't know no answers for you can ask me questions, which if you knew our chair, he's a lawyer, he knows everything during regular session. For him to be willfully
blind or ignorant didn't pass muster to me. And they're eighty eight Democrats, I'm sorry, eighty eight Republicans and sixty two Democrats in the House, and sixty two doesn't meet eighty eight. It only takes seventy six votes to pass a bill, but it takes one hundred votes to do business, and so they have to find twelve Democrats to go with their eighty eight votes to be able to have a quorum.
And that's what we had to do.
We had to stop them because people weren't paying attention when they racially redistricted in North Carolina where they literally stole three seats and they divided up the black and bround community, which is racist. And don't let anyone tell you anything else. This is not a power graph. This isn't an effort to disenfranchise black and brown voters, and that is illegal under the constitution. Power grabbing is actually legal under this Trump Supreme Court that he owns. It
used to be illegal, but it's now legal. And so we saw that we didn't have the number, so we left. That's exactly what we did. And right now they're relegated to wining. And in fact, they winded so much I need some keys, some grapes, some salami to go with all that wining. And they can keep winding, and they can keep making threats that need nothing because we ain't scared and we ain't going back.
Well, and to this point, I think that what's so fascinating about this, as you know, is being reported that Donald Trump met with legislators to say how many CT needs right for this twenty sixth election. Now, Julyan, I'm gonna tell you the truth. I have been on our podcast on Native Lampard regularly saying, I don't even know why we're doing this countdown for the midterms when there's not going to be an election. Perhaps we got a fascist in the White House. And all right, well, here's
the thing. I was corrected by a brilliant civil rights lawyer who shall remain nameless. She said, now, I can't tell you a thing about twenty eight, but twenty six there will likely be an election, because why would he be going around telling this the stay time many ct needs. There's something else he's trying to do. So if we could for a minute, Representative Jones talk about why Texas. You already brought up the fact that the late great
Sylvester Turner passed. We know, of course, before that, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee passed. Governor Abbott was not going to allow for a special election until November, and the big, ugly, terrible, awful, ain't no good bill passed by one vote the first time it came to the House floor. So talk about why Texas. Why is this so critical right now?
It's critical because it's what allows him to have his votes, Like, let me be clear, had I been in Congress how to vote it against it, and it would have failed, and we wouldn't be having the things going on that are that we're having going on that negatively affect Americans. You know, with all these tariffs that have increased the prices of everything, where he's wiped out people and they don't have health care we're Medicaid and Medicare, people don't
have it. Where people can't get good jobs, where he's at war with other countries which is increasing the cost of goods, where people can't afford affordable housing, where he is decimating public education. I'm a product of public education. That's why I know them bad laws because I went to good public schools, public elementary, middle school, high school's college, and law school. So we need a strong public education system. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the people
that vote high for him aren't very educated. I believe he wants a dumb electorate so that he can sell them wolf tickets and that he can continue to be a monarch in this country and totally ignore the constitution, ignore it. He wants to take us back to Jim Crow. He wants to take us back before the Voting Rights Act. He wants to take us back to before the Civil Rights Act, and black people, I'm speaking to you if you think, if you think it can't get worse, it can.
And the reason that you don't know how bad it is is because of the efforts that people made long before us, John Lewis, Martin, Luther King, Malcolm X, Barbara Jordan, you name it, to get us the rights we have.
At least during segregation, we.
Knew that we depended on us and that we had to provide for us from education to banks, to jobs, to everything. But then we went and got integration, and we done lost our minds and we literally think we've made it, when the truth is, during segregation, we made sure everybody came up. During integration is some special negroes,
and then there are others that nobody cares about. And I'm a person who believes that a country should be judged not by how the best of us live, but how the disenfranchised, at least the last the loss live. And right now we are doing a horrible job. We're doing a horrible job. And if you think you can't be one of them, like one of those who can't pay their bills. You wrong, Like, I don't know what land you're living in, but you're not living in the one.
I mean, in what world did we ever think us citizens could be deported?
What world? I know?
And we's threatening it. But let's let's put a pin in that right there. Let's talk about this just for a moment. One thing that was used to describe is presidency in twenty twenty was unprecedented. Right this time, it is unprecedented times fifty, and I think or maybe it's times twenty twenty five. Pun intended here, but here's the thing that I think is important for folks at home to know, you know, a representative Jones better than anyone's,
especially serving on the redistricting committee. Redistricting generally happens every ten years, aligned with the census. The census is twenty twenty, twenty thirty, twenty forty is twenty twenty five. The only thing that's happened in twenty twenty five is Trump's election and project twenty twenty five. Can you talk about why this in particular is so troubling, especially because it's Texas, it's Missouri, it's we already talked about North Carolina, you've
been speaking to North Carolina over and over again. Didn't they test this a little bit in North Carolina first to see if this would pass? Muster with other Republican legislators talk about the piece.
So what they did was they went to like a smaller state, and they did that.
They were successful.
They literally stole I mean, Trump was a thief, so we shouldn't be surprised that a thief is thiefing, right, We just shouldn't be surprised of that. And he stole three seats that belonged to black and brown people in North Carolina, which again gave him the majority that they have.
In Congress right now.
So now since he controls Texas, I mean, he has shown us with vouchers and with other things that when he tells Greg Abbott to jump, Greg Abbot jumps, however.
How he tells him.
And the reason that that is is because there were twenty four Republicans in Texas that voted against something that was very important in the eighth in the eighty eighth legislative session, and literally when there was time for reelection for the eighty ninth legislative session, they targeted those twenty four. They took out fifteen of the twenty four. It is very very very very very hard to take out an incumbent. But they Trump endorsed against all of them and poured
millions of dollars against them. The Republicans are leading, and I actually don't believe it's leading by fear and not by courage, by cowardice and not by courage. And so he's already showed them I can take you out if you don't do what I say. So they are all like, okay, fine, and they've been the neee and so they have allowed themselves to be bullied, and they would they're worried more about staying elected than they are about what's best for their constituencies.
When I'm sorry, and.
I'm sorry you asked me a question and I sort of went on a tangent. Here's the reason why twenty twenty five is so important is because I believe that Trump wants to get the Supreme Court and all the federal courts stacked, which he needs the government to function in these Congress not to vote against him, not for judicial appointments, but for his twenty twenty five policies, and he needs for to be able to pass laws to
abridge states rights so that he can control them. And so he needs to make sure that he has enough Republican districts so that in the twenty twenty six elections that they don't lose Congress, because we now know that despite his actestations that he's sold popularly, he has never had more He's never been more popular, which reminds me of like a middle schooler or an elementary school person saying I'm the best, I'm the best, I'm the best.
Which is what he does.
He got to vouch for himself because people don't vouch for him, but he needs he knows he's going to lose, so he's got to rig this so he can keep control. Because the only people that can stop Donald Trump is Congress. Congress can vote against his shit right, Congress can investigate him, call hearings, pull his records, pull the Epstein files, and that's what he's really terrified about. And Congress can impeach him.
The Senate doesn't do those things. That's why it's important that he hold on to Congress.
Well, and let me ask you this, I know you have to go. You're literally on the run. So we can't hold you in one location for too long. I want to ask you, you know people are watching you all think outside the box and be really strategic, not just in resisting the agenda, but really adamantly opposing it and providing it with an alternative. You all are showing people what democracy should look like, that you have the right to oppose and say not on our watch. This
isn't the right thing to do. This isn't how we normally operate. But for folks at home who are saying, well, how long can you be on the run, And when you all are no longer on the run and have to face whatever is coming, what can we do at home to support you all in this agenda to ensure that this particular thing doesn't just not pass in Texas, but not in these other states that are at risk as well.
So one, I hope that we're an example to other people that you can stand against tyranny, you can stand against bullies. But I almost stay running for as long as I need to run. And let me be clear, I ran away from things that are very important to me. I'm a new grandmother, I missing my granddaughter. Have to be okay with facetiming because I'm fighting for her. I need for her, as a mixed race black slash Indian child to have the opportunities that doctor King and John
Lewis fought for. I do not want for her to be a second class citizen by virtue of her being at a mixed race child with immigrant relatives. And so I've got to fight for her. And if I don't do it, who will? And if I don't do it now, then when? Because we literally have to stay gone, and what we need for you to do is to support us.
We are.
I left a business. My son is a lawyer. We practice law together. He's got to hold a four down right this morning, I'm talking to him like, you got to go to this course, you gotta go to this court. He's handling my clients because I have bills to pay, just like y'all.
Y'all think we're rich.
We literally make six hundred dollars a month as state legislators. That's what we make, and that pays for our insurance in our retirement. True so, And I'm a dues paying member of the Texas State Employees Union. So I'm a union girl as well, because I believe strong unions and you've got to have dues paying members.
But my point is this, if we want in America.
Where we can get the Civil Rights tect, the Voting Rights Act, and have a black man be president and a black woman beyond the US Supreme Court, we've got to have a country that allows that.
And Donald Trump is trying to take that away.
He literally doesn't respect anybody black who's in any position of authority. He calls it affirmative action for the most part, and that's some bs. And so somebody's got to fight. And at this moment, and this time it's the Texas Democrats. And what happens in Texas will affect you, just like what happened in North Carolina has affected you. And that's why your life right now is way harder than it
was before Donald Trump took office. And the Supreme Court is afraid of him, the media, mainstream media is afraid of him. You're not afraid of him. So thank you very much, But let me be clear, We've got to fight. We've got to fight now.
We need your help.
Please give to the Texas Legislative Black Caucus. You can find the link. I don't have it on me right now, but I've literally got to go because they're waiting on me because we got to keep it moving like this is life on the run.
Absolutely, will you keep running and we'll keep talking. State Representative Jelanta Jones, thank you so much for all you do is this. We lift you up, we hold you up how you are in our prayers and we'll we're definitely supporting you. Everybody.
Thank you. I appreciate you.
Thank you. Okay, everybody, We'll be right back after we pay some bills. Oh wow, so you all, I don't know if you're following redistricting at home. I tend to believe that our native lampod listeners understand these issues a little more than others. But I just want to make sure you all understand what is all at stake and why I wanted to back into this. Our good sis could make a little bit of time for us and literally as a track and build star. She's a runner,
she's a t and that's real life. So I just want to back into this for a moment. Jerry Mandering isn't in and of itself wrong. Racist jerry mandering and redistricting is wrong, and the challenge that we have right now as a country. On the sixtieth anniversary, y'all can
look this up of the Voting Rights Act. Donald Trump is doing all he can to decimate that with the help of his little Republican imps that are including state representatives, state senators, and of course some of these governors where they have supermajorities. They plan to challenge this at on every side, because what they want to do is to get to a point where there is so much unanimity in the federal government that there's nobody there to challenge him.
Those are the kinds of things that the Voting Rights Act guarded. Again, so let me tell you what happened in twenty thirteen, there was a case that went to the Supreme Court called Shelby versus Holder. In that case, which just so happens to be after Barack Obama's second election, not by accident, they decided, Hey, do we really need all of this stuff in the Voting Rights Act? Do we really need Section four's formula that ensures that Section fives states that need to be pre cleared to ensure
that there's no discrimination. Do we need to do that? Y'all got a black president. I think discrimination is gone. But let me tell you something. While they were making that decision, and by the way, spoiler alert from twenty thirteen, they decided to gut Section four, which pretty much renders a Section five nullan nullan void of the Voting Rights Act. They decided to say that we no longer needed those protections that we shall overcome has now become we have overcome,
we don't need it. That's what they did in the Supreme Court. While that was happening, there was an organization called it, actually it still exists, called the American Legislative Exchange Council. It goes by Alex some of you all got to know Alec from the Stanyard Ground Law, which is what George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin's killer, relied upon to
get out of that case and to be quitted. Now, at the same time that case was making its way to the Supreme Court, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which includes state legislators from all over the country, had a boiler plate template bill that legislators could literally copy and paste for voter ID. And there are a lot of folks y'all who say, well, voter ID is not racist, It's fine it doesn't hurt anyone. We're all good. It's okay. We just want to make sure that we identify you.
Here's the thing. A lot of advocates said that the voter ID legislation was a solution in search of a problem that by the time some folks who live in rural areas go to get their ID just to vote, it is equivalent to a poll tax. A lot of challengers, So remember that's happening. There was also a template bill they introduced to cut back on early voting days to
make absentee voting more challenging. I believe at that time, between twenty ten and twenty tail twelve, the one hundred and thirteen measures were introduced in state legislatures all over the country. Why am I bringing this up in twenty twenty five again, there's something that happened in twenty eight and twenty twelve that they never wanted to see happen again. His name is Barack Hussein Obama. He was your forty fourth president. Do you understand? So this is all by design.
Project twenty twenty five did not pop up and get birth yesterday. This thing has been in the works for forty plus years and now because there was a place where it seemed like we had arrived, we had reached the promised land, at least in the mind of some folks, they wanted to find a way to ensure that we were punished. The way they did that was through our voting rights, because it was one of the Moose Prize
civil rights accomplishments we have. So here we are now in a space where members of Congress, by the way, have been fighting to ensure that majority minority districts are preserved so that people who look like me and you, who are in states have representation in Congress. Racial gerry
mandering is different than jerry mandering for representation. They are trying to shed and dilute and get rid of the states states to the seats that are both state legislator based seats, State senator seats and members of the House of Representatives United States House of Representative seats, diluting those to just make them strictly geography geographical based districts. Some of you may say, well that seems fair. Well, you don't know what it's like to be in this country
filling voiceless, unseen, unheard, with no representation. The other big thing that's happened since over the past several years. When I was the CBC executive director, I believe we had forty maybe forty three CBC members. That number is now up to twenty of twenty more members. So now I think there are sixty four black members who are CBC members, because everybody black ain't a member of the CBC in the United States House as well as in the Senate combined.
So now they're trying to figure out a way to retract because you know what, we didn't got too power for y'all. So this is what's going on. Your president is trying to figure way, figure out a way to retract that power, to control that power, to reduce that power. And how they're going about it is through the redistricting process. It is normally every ten years. We are at the five year mark. The only thing that has happened is Donald Trump's America, where they don't have to go by
the rules anymore. There is no gentlemen or gentle ladies agreement or gentle person's agree. All of the rules go out the window. And what he is doing, what his administration is doing, what the Heritage Foundation is doing, what Fox News is doing is trying to stress test every single thing that we've relied upon for protection in this country, to ensure that our voices are heard, to ensure that
there actually is a democracy. So they pull up the thing to see if they can make it fall, and when they make it fall, they go to the next thing to destroy that. So we have spent a lot of time banking on our civil and human rights, banking on those protections to ensure that even when we don't have the money they have, when we don't have the tools that they have, when we don't have the access they have, that there's still something we can rest up against.
Those are the things they're knocking down right now. So I know that we're asking people who are carrying so much, making sure you have enough money to feed your families, making sure you have grocery money, gas money, making sure that your snap benefits are in tacked and they don't continue to get cut, making sure that you can afford healthcare. In this country. We are asking you, I know, to
care about yet another thing. And the reason why is because if we don't bring the battle to them on this, I don't know what the next battle will be. I don't know that we'll be able to win the war. So I'm asking you to read up on this, to pay attention, to look at the long fight black folks
had to get the representation in Congress. We deserve to get the representation in state houses all over the country that we deserve, to get the representation in state senates in places we deserve, and even on the city level, on the municipal and county level, there is an election, an election today where I live in Washington State. We have we made history in twenty four electing the first ever black Attorney general. We're about to have a black
county Executive's name is Germie. Uh. Why can't think of Vermad's last name? Now lord anyway, but about to be our guy. I'm gonna look this up because this is my friend too. I don't know why I can't think of Germa's last name, but he is gonna win, uh the state the county executive a race in uh in King County, which is where I'm from in Seattle, and Germai Zahlai, sorry, Germi Zahalai is going to be the next King County exec But what I'm telling you is,
even when we go and make history. They always figure out a way to retract. Y'all, we have to figure out a way to fight back, and we cannot leave our elected officials on their own. We just cannot do it. So I'm asking you all to if you are have an election today like we do in Seattle, go vote Bruce Harrel is running. That's a black mayor. They got a white progressive woman named Katie that is going against him, doesn't want him to win. I'm telling y'all, some of
this is not just political. Some of it is just racism. That's what it is. And sometimes racism is not just part I ask you to look up what it means to dilute districts racially, to understand what racist redistricting and jurymandering looks like. That is what is happening right now. We cannot afford to have it happen on our watch. It impacts everything. It impacts whether or not your elected
official signs and ice agreement. It impacts whether or not folks get accurate representation in contracts and vendor opportunities with the city, with the state, with the county. It impacts all of these things. It impacts how much time people spend in jail. It impacts whether or not bail cash bail will be the law of the land or not. It impacts healthcare systems. These things touch your lives, whether or not you touch politics. It is time for politics
to be touched by you. It is time for politics to be influenced by you, because if you do not stand in the gap, I promise you these folks are eager, eager to take your place, and as you can see, they are not representing your best interests. The Congressional Black Caucus founders used to say, no permanent friends, no permanent enemies,
just permanent interests. These are your permanent interests. If you want to have some permanence in this country, if you want to fight back for what you know is right, you've got to join join us. And I'm saying I'm standing with the tracks star y'all. Julanda Jones, the state representative in Texas, joined us today. She's prolific, she's profound, and she is not the only fighter. She's being joined by all of the Legislative Black Caucus in Texas and
many others stand with them. Read about what they're doing and get creative in your response too. This is Native Lampod. I am your host, Angela Rye. Will be all together again on Thursday, reunited and it feels so good. We have a great guest, Meddi Hassan will join us and we can't wait to talk him about how he dragged those folks at the Jubilee conversation or debate. And we will also be talking a lot more about redistricting and so much more that is going on in this country
right now. As always, please make sure you send us your videos, tell us what's on your heart and mind. Let us know if you disagree with us or if you agree, share a testimony. We don't mind hearing some good news these days. And definitely make sure that you rate, review and subscribe if you haven't already done that. That's the least you can do. That's your most reasonable service. It is your homework and that is how you can stand form. We love y'all, We see you soon. Welcome home.
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